


break that boombox out (we’ll wake up all the neighbors)

by moxiemorton



Series: we’re not at the end yet (but we’ve already won) [2]
Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F, aren't you tired of being nice, but like G rated, don't you just want to go apeshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:42:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28039368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moxiemorton/pseuds/moxiemorton
Summary: Bemily Week Day 2 - FamousNow that Emily is a bona fide musician and her popularity is on the rise, neither of them get a moment's rest. And it's fine for Beca, who's used to this stupid intensive routine following an album launch, but clearly it's taking a toll on the industry newbie.
Relationships: Emily Junk/Beca Mitchell
Series: we’re not at the end yet (but we’ve already won) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2052180
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46





	break that boombox out (we’ll wake up all the neighbors)

**Author's Note:**

> this is a lowkey shoutout to the neighbors in my previous apartment who, a week into covid lockdown, threw a party with just the two of them and blasted music until way past 1am....I was annoyed but they sounded like they were having fun so good for them
> 
> btw this series is alternating POV because clearly I can't choose who tf I want this AU to be focused on!!!

It gets exhausting after a while. 

The parties. The meetings. The press junkets. The parties. The performances. 

The goddamn _parties_.

Beca’s been through it all, this tired old pattern that follows a newly signed artist and their first big album release. Marketing and publicity and all that sellout nonsense never appealed to her, especially with social media clout culture thrown in the mix, and she’s always found it annoying as hell, frankly, that up-and-coming celebrities have to try so hard to be seen by the right people in order to establish their place on the popularity hierarchy. 

Annoying as hell, but manageable. She’s not the one the cameras are looking for, after all.

And to her credit, Emily handles it well. She’s got the charm, the social skills, the energy, the drive. The smiles, the attitude, the looks. She’s the whole package, really, the perfect young new musician rising to fame. 

But if it’s exhausting to Beca, watching from the sidelines, there’s no fathoming how exhausted Emily is. 

She’s fantastic at hiding it in public, effortlessly keeping up with her jam-packed schedule and maintaining her easygoing image without so much as a flicker of burnout. But it’s a completely different story when she returns home to the privacy of their apartment, eyes distant and unfocused with fatigue, feet dragging as she shuffles straight into her room and collapses face down on her bed, almost immediately passing out with her lights on and door open. 

Beca can see it slowly draining her, see the stress gradually building up, see how irritable and un-Emily-like she’s becoming at home. 

The unfortunate burden of being recognized for your talents.

It’s just a part of the gig. Beca knows this, god, she’s _lived_ this for years now, and knows Emily’s more than capable of handling herself…but it’s hard to not be protective. She’s known this girl since she was an awkward and lanky eighteen-year-old freshman, scribbling down song lyrics in a spiral-bound journal during rehearsal breaks. 

If it were socially acceptable, she’d fight anyone and everyone who pushes Emily beyond her limits and gives her a hard time.

At least that’s what Beca fantasizes, listening to Theo brief her on some club opening or club show or concert or some bullshit that she can’t be bothered to spare two brain cells on. Because it’s yet another tired old pattern, some hip new venue owner requesting a few, notable, young celebrities to attend some dumb event to boost their reputation and promote their business. 

“Sorry, is this not interesting enough for you?” he asks, noticing her lack of focus. “Did you want a PowerPoint slideshow with fun little animations on it?”

“No, sorry,” Beca says, more annoyed than apologetic. “It’s just…I mean, same shit, different day, right? We go to this club nonsense, take a few photos, we get wasted afterwards, yadda, yadda.” She exhales slowly, dragging a hand down her face. “Look, man. I don’t wanna sound like a bitch, but —”

“Well, you’re off to a fantastic start.”

“— _but_. Do we really need to be there? Like, can’t we skip this one ridiculous promotional bullshit and have a weekend to ourselves?”

Theo leans back in his seat. “You know, _you_ don’t need to come. Just Emily,” he says pointedly. “Don’t wanna sound like a bitch, but this little shindig is more about people like her and less about people like us. Your absence won’t be noted, trust me.”

“Yeah, but…” She groans. “I just. I can’t just…not go,” she finishes lamely. 

“Hm,” Theo hums. “You’re worried about her.”

“I’m not _worried_ ,” Beca lies defensively. “I’m…just thinking ahead. Big picture. A little R&R would be better for us than wasting a night at this stupid club."

“Beca.” He rubs at his temples. “The label owns this club.”

“Okay, great. Plenty of more opportunities for us to exploit our clients, right? We’ll skip tonight, thanks.”

There’s a half-amused, half-irritated look on Theo’s face. The amused half is a bit more pronounced, which Beca takes as a good sign. 

“Why don’t you talk to Emily about this? See what she says,” he suggests. “My official stance is to have her there tonight whether she wants to go or not. That’s just the way it is. But…if she were to say…contract a stomach virus that conveniently incapacitates her for the next three days…” 

He shrugs. 

Beca rolls her eyes. She appreciates him, but she has to roll her eyes. 

Which means the challenge now is convincing Emily to skip this stupid event. She’d probably insist on going, bless her little workaholic heart, but Beca’s now determined to keep her away from any work-related outings tonight.

She mulls over a series of excuses and rebuttals as she steps out onto the hustle and bustle of the city streets for lunch, pulling out her phone to see if there’s a concert or performance they can crash instead.

On her lock screen is a stacked notification: twelve new messages from Emily.

The panic lasts only half a second before Beca reads the most recent text, an apology and assurance that it’s not an emergency. “Jesus, Legacy,” she mutters, opening the texts. 

**Emily:** _hey can i ask you something about the club thing tonight_

 **Emily:** _actually no never mind_

 **Emily:** _no nvm that nvm_

 **Emily:** _cuz i don’t wanna go_

 **Emily:** _is that bad?_

 **Emily:** _would it be bad if we miss jsut one party?_

 **Emily:** _*juts_

 **Emily:** _**JUST ugh_

 **Emily:** _you know what forget i asked_

 **Emily:** _we’ll go_

 **Emily:** _or if you don’t wanna go i’ll go by myself_

 **Emily:** _ok sorry for blowing up your phone i swear it’s not an emergency_

Or maybe it won’t be too hard to convince her.

Instead of texting back and adding to the confusing stream of indecisiveness, Beca pulls up her contacts to call Emily. It rings for a while before she picks up. 

“Hi,” Emily answers with a sigh, like even that monosyllabic greeting is too much effort. 

“Uh. Hi.”

“Sorry for texting you like 600 times. I was just having a moment.”

“Kind of sounds like you’re still having one,” Beca says. “Look, we don’t have to go tonight if you don’t want to.”

“It’s not…” Emily pauses. “It’s not that I _don’t_ want to go.”

“Okay, but it _really_ sounds like you don’t want to go.” Beca rushes past a honking cab, covering her mouthpiece as if that would do anything. “And that’s fine. You had a rough week, I totally get it if you’re not in the dancing mood.”

She sighs again. “No, it’s not that either. You know I’m always down to dance.”

It’s a weird sentence to hear in such a dejected tone, and Beca bites back a smile despite the somberness of the conversation. “So…you don’t wanna go to _this_ party but you still wanna party,” she concludes.

“Yeah, kind of,” Emily admits. “We’ve been going to all these dumb social events and they’re all right, I guess, but it’s been so long since we did anything fun. _For_ fun. I just…I miss…” 

And Emily doesn’t finish the thought but Beca knows what she wants to say.

 _I miss hanging with the Bellas_. 

She knows because she feels the same way. It’s hard to not miss those nights when they’d hit the town, a mob of loud, drunken girls shamelessly crowding into bars and clubs like they owned every establishment they entered.

“Well it’s Friday night; why don’t we ditch the lame club and hit up a different lame club? Just the two of us?”

“But you hate clubbing.”

Beca shrugs even though Emily can’t see it. “You don’t.”

“No,” Emily says firmly. “Only one of us is allowed to be miserable tonight.”

“I mean it’d be better if neither of us were miserable.” Beca stops in her tracks, unable to think while dodging so many people and cars. “It’s up to you, dude — I’m open to anything. What do you want to do?”

A groan fills the line. “I don’t knowwww. I hate it when you let me make my own decisions.”

“Oh, do you?” Beca laughs.

“…No.” Emily sighs a third time, long and dramatic. “What’s this club party thing even for?”

“Honestly? I’m not sure, I wasn’t really listening,” she says. “I think the club owner wants some celebrity guests. The label owns it, so I guess it’s for publicity, same as always. Photo ops, handshakes, watered-down drinks. Pretty sure we can bounce as soon as they get a few pics, if that changes your mind.”

Emily’s quiet on the other end. 

“Yeah, didn’t think so.” She leans against the side of a building, contemplating. Drifting beyond the rush of pedestrians, her eyes settle on a store across the street. “Okay. We’re skipping the club,” Beca decides firmly.

“What about Theo? Won’t he get mad?”

“We’ll say you’re sick. A stomach bug, I dunno,” she says nonchalantly, clearly picturing Theo scoffing at her for blatantly stealing his idea. “It’s fine. We’re fine. Look, I’ll…I mean, I’ll be home late today because of stupid meetings, but we can do something else, okay? Just. Hang tight.”

“I wait with bated breath,” Emily jokes, but her voice sounds the slightest bit more cheerful. More like herself. 

“Okay, nerd, I’ll see you later. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Beca’s jaywalking across the street before she even hangs up, rushing into the party store that had caught her eye, determined to make sure neither of them are miserable tonight.

* * *

The apartment is pitch black and dead silent when Beca returns. Emily’s door is closed, a sliver of light and the soft strum of a guitar the only indication that she’s still awake.

Instinctively, Beca goes into stealth mode, closing the door quietly and tiptoeing across the living room even though the floors are brand-freaking-new and never make a sound anyway. She sets out drinks and glasses on the dining table and gets to work pushing all the living room furniture to the side as silently as possible.

There’s no reason for her to be sneaking around; she could easily drag Emily out of her room and enlist her in this dumb mission, this super super _super_ dumb attempt at cheering her up. But she wants everything to be set up and ready to go before Emily sees what she’s doing, mostly because Beca’s weirdly self-conscious about this and if Emily comes out and shows even the slightest hint of disinterest or confusion, Beca might just die of embarrassment. 

So she struggles alone, pushing and pulling at the furniture until a wide space is cleared off. Then she ducks into the studio to unplug every single monitor they have, holding in her strained grunts as she drags them out into the living room. 

And because she’d gone through the effort to buy all this crap, she decorates the shit out of the place with shiny streamers and bits of glittery confetti that she’ll hate herself for in the morning when she has to sweep it all up. Then she pulls out the pièce de résistance — a small, plug-in, rainbow disco ball — and places it on one of the monitors. 

Somewhere along the way she stops caring about staying quiet and starts making a shit ton of noise, but Emily miraculously doesn’t come out to investigate until the entire setup is finished. 

Her door creaks open just as Beca pairs her phone to the stereo system, and as Emily enters the living room to ask what’s going on, Beca hits play.

“Uh. What…?” 

And dials up the volume to Full Fucking Blast. 

Emily reels back from the sheer force of the sound, eyes widening as dance music fills the apartment and rattles the windows. Her jaw drops as she takes in the monitors, the cleared-off floor space, the disco ball speckling the walls with a multitude of colors. 

Beca pulls her into the living room. “Come on, we’re _partying_!”

“Wh-?”

“ _Now_!”

Because Emily’s Emily, there’s no need for further prompting. 

She gives a little shrug and starts dancing, confusion slowly melting into genuine joy as she joins Beca on the makeshift dance floor. It feels a little ridiculous, just the two of them going crazy in their living room to a Spotify playlist Beca had made in college for a cappella parties, but having Emily join her, seeing her smile light up the otherwise darkened room, kind of makes it all worth it.

So she pours them both shots of cheap rum and they knock them back like they’re back at a Treblemaker party, pulling identical faces of disgust but refusing to grab a mixer from the fridge. It’s like they’d reached some nonverbal agreement to keep this night as trashy as it would’ve been at a club, downing whatever cheap alcohol that would get them drunk the fastest. 

Beca’s pouring them their fourth shot when the song changes and Emily grabs her by the shoulders. 

“Oh, my god! We have choreo to this song!”

Which leads to them performing two-person renditions of Bellas arrangements neither of them can fully remember, their moves and steps so uncoordinated that Beca briefly wonders if they’re going to somehow summon a pissed-off Aubrey straight into their living room.

Beca tries to teach Emily some songs they’d performed before Emily came to Barden. 

Emily tries to teach Beca some songs she’d arranged after Beca had graduated. 

They both suck ass at teaching, fairly tipsy and yelling to be heard over the music, but they try anyway because it’s that kind of night where they can be themselves for once, let loose and be goofy and act a fool in the comfort of their own apartment. 

And Beca’s just reaching that stage of drunkenness where she’s intoxicated enough to let herself feel all these happy emotions and sober enough to appreciate that she’s feeling them at all — that stage of drunkenness where she can look at Emily, really look at her, and see how far they’d come from that tiny recording room at her internship.

That’s when she hears it. 

Knocking. Banging. 

On their door. 

Instant fear freezes every drop of alcohol running through Beca’s veins and stops her heart mid-beat. She dives for her phone so fast she almost knocks over a lamp. The music cuts off abruptly when she hits the pause button, leaving behind a deafening silence and a slight ringing in their ears. 

Heart pounding, Beca flicks on the lights and opens the door to the stone-faced security guard she sometimes sees in the lobby. He looks extremely unhappy. 

“H-hi,” she says, mortifyingly aware that she’s completely out of breath. “Uh. Were we too loud?”

“We got several complaints from your neighbors,” he says, voice gruff and disapproving.

“Oh, god.”

“I called your apartment six times.”

“I’m. God. Jesus. I’m so sorry, we didn’t hear you.”

Emily pops up from behind her, similarly out of breath. “Hi, Joe.”

Because of course she’d be on a first-name basis with their building’s security. 

“Hi, Emily,” he greets, the stern set of his jaw softening a bit. “Look, I get that you’re both some kind of big deal now. But just because you’re famous doesn’t mean you get to act a fool without consequences, got it?”

“Yes, got it, yes, sir,” Beca says, saluting for some godforsaken reason. 

“First warning. You’re off the hook this time.” A puzzled look crosses his face as he seems to realize just how silent their apartment is without the music. “Is…there anyone else in there?” 

Beca closes her eyes and briefly fantasizes jumping straight out the window instead of answering the question honestly. God, she wishes she was drunker. “Um. No.”

“So that’s not a party you’re throwing?”

“No, sir.”

“Actually, we _are_ throwing a party,” Emily corrects brightly. “But it’s just us.”

“Just you? Just you two?”

“Just us!”

Beca wants to die. “Okay, can we just…? We’ll turn the music down,” she tells Joe. “Or like, completely off. We’ll be quiet. Won’t hear a peep from us,” she says, forcing a laugh. “Okay. Good night.”

She closes the door as quickly as she can without slamming it, her body burning up with embarrassment. “Well,” Beca starts. “Guess our whole building hates us now.”

Behind her, Emily’s practically folded in half at the waist, doubled over laughing so hard that her face is bypassing red and gaining a dangerously purple tint. She staggers blindly over to the couch and collapses in a heap on the cushions, gasping for breath, as Beca watches, dumbfounded. 

“Is the threat of eviction that funny to you?” she asks.

Emily can barely answer. Her mouth opens and closes, forming words that don’t make it through her heaving laughter. “Your face,” she manages to choke out. “You — _god_ — the _look_ on your —” 

And apparently that’s all she can say. 

“You're…you’re laughing at _me_?” Beca says incredulously. “ _Seriously_?”

Minimally regaining her composure, Emily wipes at her eyes and fans herself. “Just — you…the way you…” She doesn’t even finish the incomprehensible observation before dissolving back into hysterics, covering her face with her hands as if that would hide her laughter.

“All right. Okay. That’s it.” 

Patience snapping, Beca tosses her phone aside and strides over to the couch with murderous intent; she pounces on top of the giggling mess of a girl and promptly digs all of her fingers into the soft bits of Emily’s sides.

Emily screams and jerks so violently she almost launches Beca straight onto the coffee table. Fueled by embarrassment, adrenaline, and a fair amount of vengeance, Beca latches on, feeling evil satisfaction at the fact that Emily is too delirious and weak from laughing to properly fend off her tickling fingers. 

She’s vaguely aware that this is the exact opposite of staying quiet and not bothering their already peeved neighbors, but the gremlin in her brain urges her on because what the hell, _how dare_ she laugh at Beca for being terrified of getting a noise complaint.

Eventually Emily recovers her voice enough to beg for mercy.

“Stop, stop! I’m gonna _pee_!” 

“Then stop laughing at me!” Beca snaps.

“ _How!_ ” Emily yells. “You’re! Not! Helping!”

Still annoyed but seeing her point, Beca relents, grumbling, and lets Emily catch her breath. 

She glares at Beca. “That was rude.” 

“You were rude first,” Beca shoots back.

“Okay, but you were just —” Emily physically bites back a laugh, mouth working to force back a smile as Beca narrows her eyes. “Y-you were just. So surprised. Like a deer in headlights.” She lets out a shaky breath. “Sorry. It was funny.”

“I’m sure it was,” Beca growls.

“Hey.” Emily shifts under her and Beca realizes she’s practically straddling her. She scrambles to hop off the couch and off of Emily, but suddenly she’s being pulled into a hug, long arms circling around her waist and holding her fast. “Thank you,” Emily says, voice all smiley and happy. “For putting all of this together. It was fun.”

Beca’s stomach swoops. She ignores it. “Yeah, no biggie,” she says, shrugging. 

Either from the dancing or the laughing or the alcohol or a combination of all three, Emily’s skin is unnaturally warm, almost feverish. Beca’s hyper-aware of every inch of her body that’s in contact with Emily’s, how soft she is, how nice she smells, how amazing it feels to be held like this.

It’s an inkling of something, a feeling too new to really put a name to it, but even her hazy mind can guess what it could potentially grow into. 

Before she can think too much about it, Emily tightens her grip. “Also, sorry,” she says, sounding genuinely apologetic. “But you need to pay for your crimes.”

And with her arms locked around Beca, trapping her against her own body, Emily proceeds to mercilessly pinch at Beca’s sides until she’s crying with laughter. 

**Author's Note:**

> title song: House Party - Sam Hunt
> 
> ha I actually lied I don't have day 3 done but I've been trying to finish it for almost two weeks now so!! we'll see
> 
> hmu http://becaeffingmitchell.tumblr.com/


End file.
